Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is in the same situation as so many other cities who have a minor league baseball team. In 2020-2021, Major League Baseball decided to eliminate a number of minor league baseball teams and impose new ballpark standards on every city with a team. MLB laid out a deadline for all upgrades to be finished before the 2025 season. What needed to be done to satisfy these upgrades? MLB has never told us directly. But if we look at what many teams have done to their ballparks recently, it seems clear that MLB has told them to expand clubhouses, improve lighting on fields, allow for female spaces to change and upgrade training centers.
These new ballpark requirements mean money will need to be spent fixing and upgrading almost every venue. Who pays for these new projects? MLB doesn’t say or even mention the topic. Why should they? Just let the millionaire/billionaire owners fight it out with the financially struggling cities. That should generate some excellent PR that baseball wants and needs. Now, I understand that most cities own the ballpark facilities and the teams rent it out to play…saving the team from paying property taxes. Yet, despite now owning the land, these owners do seem to keep almost all of the revenues from the ballparks. I don’t know many non-sports business owners who have that type of agreement. So I find it laughable to not think that the owners could also pay for the expenses when they keep almost all the revenues.
As expected, over the last few years, team owners have been demanding that the cities/state pay for almost all the required upgrades. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Isotopes played in an already well-kept ballpark thanks to $25 million in taxpayer funded upgrades in 2003. But additional upgrades were needed to add a female changing room, upgrade dining facilities, and expand the weight room. Local media station, KRQE, acknowledged in a recent story that the city was “ultimately” responsible for footing the bill for the upgrades. As of June 2024, the city has spent “just under $3M” on the changes, and that doesn’t include the city recently needing to approve the sale of up to $1M in bonds to fund additional changes. Several cities in North Carolina have resorted to lawsuits or just raised taxes to fund their teams ballpark upgrades. I mean, I could go on and on for days with more examples.
This brings me to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The Myrtle Beach Pelicans are the Single-A affiliate for the Chicago Cubs. The ballpark was built with $10 million in taxpayer money and $2 million from the team. Since Myrtle Beach owns 70% of the park and Horry County owns the remaining 30%, they split the maintenance costs the same way. The team owner, Chuck Greenberg, is “liable for the operational costs and paying the staff”. As of today, the city needs at minimum $15 million to upgrade the ballpark for MLB requirements. If possible, the city wants to use up to $80 million for further enhancements. But neither the city nor the team owner intend to pay for them. The mayor of Myrtle Beach noted in an interview that the city could not justify the upgrades considering “there has not been any other development around the stadium”.
MLB also did zero consulting with the city, so that has not gone down well with some city leaders:
“Well, you’ve now imposed this new standard on these facilities, but you’ve not given anybody any financial resources to bring it up to these standards… The standards were set independent of the minor league teams, independent of the municipalities… MLB is saying do this and that, or we will find some other place for them to play” — Myrtle Beach Assistant City Manager Brian Tucker, Post & Courier, 09/24/24
You may be wondering about the money that the team brings to the city? Even if we didn’t include the city paying $1.5 million for a new field that will be installed soon, the city loses $90,000 every year. This number includes the $150,000 rent payment given by the team to the city every year. You can tell that this city is fed up. This is likely why other city leaders have gone on record and stated things like, “We’re not going to lose any more money, period”. But at least the team is talking to the community and being open about their plans. Just kidding, they are refusing to talk.
Why is nobody asking the owner to pay for these upgrades? Why are the local media not outright demanding, if not just asking, this basic question? Sports owners have simply gotten used to receiving every dollar of revenue and paying almost nothing for expenses. The owners of one minor league team admitted in a lawsuit that the city they played in had “an unlimited obligation to cover the cost of the stadium”. That is how sports owners look at their cities, with very few exceptions. I love my local sports teams and have gone to many games over the years. But that still doesn’t stop me from understanding that sports venues do not provide a single dollar of actual economic impact or development for cities/states. It has been shown through every non-bias study done over the last 20 years. The Carolina Journal wrote an article titled, “Towns are pushing for subsidized stadiums, while others struggle to keep them afloat”. This is happening around the country.